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Brooke Corp. will delay the filing of its quarterly report with the Securities and Exchange Commission because of a subsidiary’s pending sale to First Life America Corp.

Overland Park-based Brooke Corp. (Nasdaq: BXXX) said in a filing Wednesday with the SEC that its Brooke Capital Corp. (AMEX: BCP) subsidiary’s agreement to sell all its capital stock to First Life, announced Monday, requires the presentation of First Life’s financial results as discontinued operations.

This delayed Brooke Corp.’s completion of its quarterly financial report.

U.K. house values fell by the most in at least seven years in July and the property slump will continue for months, Hometrack Ltd. said.

The average cost of a residential property in England and Wales slipped 4.4 percent from a year earlier to 168,500 pounds ($336,000), the London-based research company said today in a statement. That's the biggest annual drop since the index started seven years ago. Prices fell 1.2 percent from June.

“With no immediate end in sight to the current uncertainty, activity levels are likely to remain suppressed with prices remaining under pressure into the autumn,'' said Richard Donnell, director of research at Hometrack, in an e-mailed statement. Prices “are now back to levels last seen in October 2006.''

Banks have raised mortgage rates and limited the supply of credit, reversing a decade-long property boom in which prices tripled. The Bank of England kept the benchmark interest rate at 5 percent this month on concerns that inflation is accelerating even as the economy risks slipping into a recession.

The majority of house-price declines were in southern England. Demand for housing has declined 20 percent in the past three months, Hometrack said.

Central bank policy makers said this month that the housing downturn has “gathered momentum,'' minutes of the July 7 meeting showed last week. The Monetary Policy Committee split three ways in its interest-rate vote. Timothy Besley favored an increase to help stem the fastest in inflation in a decade and David Blanchflower supported a reduction to ease an economic slowdown.

Slower Growth

Britain's economy grew 0.2 percent in the second quarter, matching the slowest pace since 2001. Unemployment jumped the most in June since the aftermath of the last recession in 1992 as the economic slowdown forced homebuilders and banks to cut jobs.

Banks are curbing lending following the collapse of the U.S. subprime mortgage market, which so far has cost financial institutions worldwide $469 billion in writedowns and losses. U.K. mortgage approvals slumped in June to the lowest level in at least a decade, according to the British Bankers' Association.

Demand for farmland also declined for the first time since 2005 in the first half of the year, the Royal Institution of Charted Surveyors said in a separate report today.

The deteriorating economic outlook has contributed to the pound's 12 percent decline against a currency basket of Britain's main trading partners, making exports cheaper for overseas buyers.

The weaker pound “won't prevent the credit crunch, a major housing downturn and a sharp retrenchment in corporate spending from sending the economy into recession,'' Roger Bootle, chief economic adviser to Deloitte & Touche LLP in London, wrote in a report published yesterday.

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The Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship is partnering with Baltimore-area nonprofits to help the organizations boost fundraising efforts.

The golf tournament, taking place Oct. 6-12 at the Baltimore Country Club in Timonium, is offering $22 discounted daily tickets to nonprofits. The tickets are discounted from $27 apiece.

Through the program, the nonprofit will keep $10 for each ticket sold. The tournament will keep $10 and the remaining $2 will be paid in taxes.

Organizations interested in participating must submit documents proving their nonprofit status.

This year’s tournament — one of five majors on the PGA’s Senior Champions Tour — comes to Baltimore Country Club’s East Course for the second time after a 17-year stint in Dearborn, Mich., with Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) as its title sponsor.

Baltimore’s Constellation Energy Group Inc (NYSE: CEG) struck a deal two years ago to take over as the lead sponsor to bring the tournament to town.

Following last year’s event, $400,000 in profits were distributed to the Kennedy Krieger Institute, First Tee of Baltimore, Union Memorial Sports Medicine and the BGE Community Assistance Fund.

Proceeds from this year’s event will once support the same four organizations.

Nucor Corp. reports a 68 percent increase in second-quarter earnings to $580.8 million, or $1.94 per diluted share, up from $344.9 million, or $1.14 per diluted share, a year ago.

Sales grew 70 percent to $7.09 billion from $4.17 billion in the second quarter of 2007.

The Charlotte-based steel maker says its average sales price per ton increased 24 percent for the year. Total tons shipped grew 38 percent to 7.73 million.

Nucor (NYSE:NUE) attributes the increase in sales and earnings to acquisitions during the last 18 months, including Harris Steel Group Inc. in March 2007 and The David J. Joseph Company in February.

Nucor incurred a $214 million charge to value inventories using the last-in, first-out method of accounting. In last year’s second quarter, the company incurred a LIFO charge of $66.5 million.

The company expects third-quarter earnings of $1.80 to $1.85 per diluted share. Nucor earned $1.29 per diluted share in the third quarter of 2007.

The U.S. Air Force will rebid the $35 billion contract to build new refueling tankers, Congressman Todd Tiahrt's office says.

A decision is expected by Dec. 31 from the office of the Secretary of Defense — not the Air Force.

The awarding of the contract to Northrop Grumman Corp. earlier this year was met with criticism both nationally and locally, where hundreds of jobs would have been created under Boeing's proposal.

Last month, a Government Accountability Office report said Boeing Co. might have won the contract if the Air Force had not made mistakes in evaluating the competing bids. The GAO recommended the service hold a new competition.

The contract, one of the largest tanker deals in Pentagon history, is the first of three Air Force contracts worth up to $100 billion to replace nearly 600 refueling tankers over the next 30 years.

Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts and Tiahrt were among lawmakers from Washington who have pressured the Air Force to reopen the bidding process and cancel the contract with Northrop Grumman Corp. and Airbus parent European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co.

On Tuesday, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., introduced a Senate resolution calling on the Pentagon to rebid the flawed tanker contract.

The resolution was cosponsored by Sens. Roberts, Kit Bond, R-Mo., and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.

On June 25, the Government Accountability Office issued a report saying that Northrop Gruman Corp.'s $35 billion tanker bid to the U.S. Air Force may have been ineligible.

And a week earlier, the GAO upheld Boeing's protest of the Air Force's decision.

The GAO's 67-page report said Northrop missed key Defense Department parameters. It also said the Air Force had penalized Boeing. The report explains the details of the GAO's ruling that the bidding may need to be reopened because of numerous flaws in how the Defense Department contract was awarded.

The Denver law firm of Fife and Associates now is called Fife, Charles, Mangall & Mossinghoff, the company reported Monday.

The names of attorneys Christ Charles, Darin Mangnall and Dan Mossinghoff were added to the firm's name.

The firm focuses on criminal law and DUI defenses.

Charles has been with the firm since 2004, and Mangnall and Mossinghoff have been with it since 2005.

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Ontario's retail sector continues to grow, despite the loss of cross-border shoppers to Western New York.

A new Statistics Canada report says that Ontario's retail sales grew by 0.7 percent between March and April. That was slightly better than the nationwide increase of 0.6 percent.

It marked the second straight increase in retail activity in Ontario, essentially wiping out February's sharp decline. Ontario's retail sales have generally been on the upswing since hitting a low point in mid-2007.

That coincides with the period in which the Canadian dollar reached parity with the American dollar, inspiring Ontario bargain hunters to do more of their shopping on the New York side of the Niagara River.

Total retail sales amounted to $12.7 billion (Canadian) in Ontario in April — and $35.6 billion (Canadian) in all of Canada.

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